In 2009 I followed the Cradle-to-Cradle(C2C) training of EPEA which made me accredited as C2C design consultant. Now there is an online course which gives information about C2C in an accessible way. If you like to know more about C2C this is a good course to follow.

material health: how and which materials to choose based on their reuse, recycle or renewability and their impact on humans and nature.

material reutilization: information, tips and tools on the reuse of materials in different forms like design for disassembly but also design for grinding.

the renewable energy overview shows which options there are instead of energy from finite resources.

water stewardship: what can you change in your design to save water?

Social fairness: user and maker issues. This is more an aspect for the management instead of the designer, but you can still have some influence and this course gives some tools.

Video about the shift from consumer to user from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Click here.

How?The content is brought to you in an accessible way with video’s. This gives you the possibility to stop the video for taking notes. The course reminds at which step you are so you can easily pause, log-out and continue another time. Besides information there are also a lot of examples from companies already working with cradle-to-cradle.Most of the video’s are made by Free Range studio’s (they also work for the Story of Stuff) for Autodesk. Autodesk offered them to c2ccertified.org for the use of this course. Would you like to know how Free Range studio’s makes their movies? Click here.

How long?With stopping the video’s, thinking and making notes it took me 2 hours to complete the course. Especially the second part about Material reutilization is a long one, but totally worth it as you get a lot of useful tips. If you would like to see all the company examples and their movies too it might take you 30 minutes extra.

ComparisonThe training I followed in 2009 gave more insights on the methods and processes EPEA is using with their customers and got more in depth about material health and possibilities, but this online course is a really good and clear way of learning more about Cradle to Cradle and goes into detail on material reutilization from a designer perspective. It gave me a few new insights and sources because since 2009 there has changed a lot and multiple companies are working on parts of Cradle to Cradle. So even if you did follow the training of EPEA this course might be a good fresh up and could give you new insights.